Mayoral Rumblings

Mayoral races are coming to life. Here’s a flyer (PDF) for Paul Vance down in Waterbury–where a pretty interesting primary is starting to shape up.

There’s also a candidate for mayor of Norwich, Democrat Bob Zarnetske. He’s a former city manager and current city councilman. Here’s his website. He will challenge Democratic Mayor Ben Lathrop for the nomination if Lathrop ends up running for a second term.

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6 responses to “Mayoral Rumblings”

Vance had a 3-column full-page ad on page 3 of the Republican-American yesterday. Today the Republican-American thanked him by chastising him in an editorial for voting as part of a 12-2 majority in favor of the firefighter’s contract. Looks like a 3-way primary in Waterbury. The police chief is also likely to get into the race later in the winter.

As for the WFD contract, I was not crazy about the package and would have liked a chance to negotiate a better deal (since I have some pretty good experience as a lawyer that I think would have helped). In the end, I voted to approve the contract not because I thought it was a great deal, but because I was not willing to gamble that the City would have done better in arbitration (and did not want to keep running the tab with our pricey outside legal fees). In fact, I was thinking that we would have done worse in arbitration.

I don’t know if there will be a three-way primary, I do know that I look forward to the race and trying to do things differently here in Waterbury.

Norwich, Connecticut- City Councilman and Norwich Mayoral candidate Bob Zarnetske announced his campaign is beginning a city-wide survey, the Norwich Neighborhood Priorities Initiative, to further identify residents’ top priorities for economic development.

Zarnetske was heartened by the positive public response to his “Comprehensive Economic Development Plan for the City of Norwich, which he released in late December when announcing his candidacy for Mayor.

Zarnetske and volunteers will go door to door in every neighborhood of Norwich with the survey, which will also be available at Zarnetske’s campaign website, http://www.z4mayor.com.

“The best ideas on how to improve the city will come, not from City Hall, but from the people who live and work in Norwich,” Zarnetske said. “These are tough times, but if we’re open-minded and willing to listen to each other, we can identify solutions to many of the problems we face.”

Zarnetske described the survey “as just one step on the long road toward more responsive, taxpayer-focused, neighborhood-oriented policies.” Adding, “I believe in the power of communication and in the collective wisdom of the community. The challenge is to organize all the information, suggestions, ideas, and opinions from all corners of the community.”